Consider Implementing Make NPC Town Members

[ModernMozart1787]

I was thinking recently about how towns don't feel like, well, towns unless you have 30+ active members who are almost always online. Also, town guards and the barracks should really come back. There should be some risk to raiding a town, even if the members are offline, and a town wall feels incomplete without guards. Maybe the amount of NPCs spawnable could be incremental to number of active members, and if the number of active members increases you can spawn more NPCs, but if it decreases, the NPCs slowly leave the town, or guard NPCs could increase town balance. Maybe the NPCs could be like Villagers in that you need them kept safe from hostile mobs, but guard NPCs kill hostile mobs on sight. Maybe have archer NPCs, Swordsman NPCs, or anything else. Please leave a comment below with your thoughts.

 

[Steve5729]

The barracks were (and as far as I'm aware still are,) Out of date. I would like to see all of these again however the Server has suffered lag spikes from NPCS and villager farms in the past (I think) but I can only imagine with how many NPCs there would be with all the new towns being made as of Conquest 3. As of now there are 44 towns currently there are 4 NPCs per town. This means there are 176 current NPCs assuming all towns have a job NPC and all industry NPCs If we were going to add 10 npcs to make towns more lively that makes 14 npcs per town or a total of 616 npcs or about 3 times as much. That is pretty laggy, this would only get worse as more and more towns are made. The other problem is Lore. Where did these people come from? Where do they go when the town dies? Other than that I think the Idea is solid and It would make the server much nicer.

 

[OperaGhost2004]

The barracks were (and as far as I'm aware still are,) Out of date. I would like to see all of these again however the Server has suffered lag spikes from NPCS and villager farms in the past (I think) but I can only imagine with how many NPCs there would be with all the new towns being made as of Conquest 3. As of now there are 44 towns currently there are 4 NPCs per town. This means there are 176 current NPCs assuming all towns have a job NPC and all industry NPCs If we were going to add 10 npcs to make towns more lively that makes 14 npcs per town or a total of 616 npcs or about 3 times as much. That is pretty laggy, this would only get worse as more and more towns are made. The other problem is Lore. Where did these people come from? Where do they go when the town dies? Other than that I think the Idea is solid and It would make the server much nicer.

That's true, and that doesn't even include t-gen NPCs

 

[Cryptite]

We have 704 NPCs on Loka at the moment.

 

[MasonMcBadbat]

I wonder how crucial the t gen NPCs are though. I wouldn't miss them if they were replaced with something that causes less trouble for the server. Plus maybe that would leave room for extra NPC(s) in town to make it feel more lively which is definitely a higher concern in my book. It's a hard thing keeping non-pvpers interested in what the town has to offer.

 

[ModernMozart1787]

I wonder how crucial the t gen NPCs are though. I wouldn't miss them if they were replaced with something that causes less trouble for the server. Plus maybe that would leave room for extra NPC(s) in town to make it feel more lively which is definitely a higher concern in my book. It's a hard thing keeping non-pvpers interested in what the town has to offer.

I completely agree. NPC town members would make the town come alive, especially for small towns. If there's any way to do it without server lag, that would be great.

 

[Cryptite]

In fairness, not all 704 NPCs are loaded always. We only spawn/despawn the TGen NPCs when needed. Same with virtually every NPC except "official ones" (ones in Aladra, docks, etc).

 

[ModernMozart1787]

maybe load and unload town ones like TGen ones?

 

[Cryptite]

maybe load and unload town ones like TGen ones?

They do

 

[ModernMozart1787]

I meant potential town member NPCs

 

[Magpieman]

The issue is many towns are loaded almost all the time, so the NPC's would also be loaded. However I do think it would be nice for towns to be able to add more NPC's.

 

[ModernMozart1787]

Do you think there's a potential way to implement this?

 

[Donutified]

Mozart, this is well thought out and I really appreciate the time and effort put into it, but as Crypt said there are so many NPCs on Loka loaded in at once. I had a chat with Skuhoo once about a similar idea and he explained how they managed to make the citizens plugin less laggy, but unfortuntely this meant the NPCs didn’t “update” as often. However, a glimmer of hope might still exist: the guards were made with the MythicMobs plugin which is entirely separate to Citizens, so it is possible that they would be able to update at a normal rate in comparison to Citizen NPCs like Melchiott.

Anyway, from personal experience the Citizens plugin has potential for this. You could make NPCs, give them a skin, set a post for them to return to or even a path to patrol. However, it doesn’t offer l many options in terms of for pathfinding.

And with the MythicMobs plugin, I’ve never used it before lol.

I hoped this helped a bit, I guess. Good luck with the thingie, I 100% support it.

 

[ModernMozart1787]

the server seems to handle any number of zombies, skeletons, creepers, & spiders. Maybe make them mobs instead of NPCs? is there a difference?

 

[Skuhoo]

the server seems to handle any number of zombies, skeletons, creepers, & spiders. Maybe make them mobs instead of NPCs? is there a difference?

...

Yes, there is a difference from vanilla mobs and the effectively fake players created using Citizens.

 

[ModernMozart1787]

Is there any way to make custom mobs that could work like NPCs?

 

[DFG1125]

Just a thought, if you have 10 members in your town, and you have access to say 3 npc's, 2 guard and one other. If you have 5/10 members online, then the 1 one other npc is loaded, but if 3 of those people online log off then the normal npc despawns, and either one or both of the guard npc's spawn in.

 

[Donutified]

Just a thought, if you have 10 members in your town, and you have access to say 3 npc's, 2 guard and one other. If you have 5/10 members online, then the 1 one other npc is loaded, but if 3 of those people online log off then the normal npc despawns, and either one or both of the guard npc's spawn in.

that would work tbh

 

[Thanielle]

that would work tbh

Except with inactive towns,

feelsbadman

 

[Donutified]

Then the inactive town becomes an npc town until it dies

Except with inactive towns,

feelsbadman

hen